See the World
by Undead Author
Summary: This is a songfic combining the song “See the World” by Gomez with scenes from 3x15, HalfWit. The scenes are not in order. Read and review, you know the drill.


**Author's Note: This is a songfic combining the song "See the World" by Gomez with scenes from 3x15, Half-Wit. The scenes are not in order. I recommend buying the song on iTunes, it's really, really good. :**

**Oh. I don't cuss, and I bleeped out the cuss words. Meh. If it bothers you, you can leave a comment or something.**

**Read&&review!**

_Day to day,_

_Where do you want to be?_

'_Cause now you're trying to pick a fight_

_With everyone you need._

"Depression in cancer patients," Wilson started, and House wondered where this was headed. "It's not as common as you'd think. It's not the dying that gets to people; it's the dying alone. The patients with family, with friends…they tend to do okay. You don't _have_ cancer. You do have who give a darn. So what do you do?" He laughed. "You _fake_ the cancer then push the people who care away."

House looked down at his desktop. He saw his friend's point, but no way was he going to tell him that. House didn't need people. "Because, they're boring." He sighed. "Go home to your hotel room and laugh at that irony."

_You seem like a soldier_

_Who's lost his composure._

_You're wounded and playing a waiting game_

_In a no-man's land no one's to blame_

Wilson entered and listened to his friend play for a moment. "Pretty," he commented.

"I wrote this when I was in junior high school. Could never figure out what came next. And Dimwit came up with this." House played Patrick's ending to the composition.  
"It's good," Wilson said impatiently.  
"It's perfect."

"I could set up a tower on the roof during a lightning storm. Help you switch brains with your patient. Then you would be the brilliant pianist and he would be the doctor hiding brain cancer from his friend." House stopped playing.

"It's nothing." He took his cane from atop the piano.

"You need to talk about it," Wilson started.

"_You_ need to talk about it." Now House was just stalling.

"At least let me look at your medical file."

"You're making a big deal out of nothing. Who else knows?" House asked.  
Wilson said, a little too quickly, "No one. And cancer isn't nothing."  
"Sorry, didn't mean to offend your specialty," House said sarcastically.  
Wilson was unhappy. "Why didn't you come to me?"

"Stein's good," House explained.

"Stein's in Africa for the next six months."

"He's given me at least six months. Go to Boston, get the treatment…" He sighed.

"Everything will be fine. No need to talk about it." 

_See the world_

_Find an old-fashioned girl._

_And when all's been said and done_

_It's the things that are given, not won,_

_Are the things that you want._

House stood. "You really wanna leave?" he asked Cameron.

"If you're not here, there's not much point in staying."

He cocked his head, analyzing her. "I'm not dead yet." She didn't respond; instead, she simply stared and started advancing toward him.

"What're you doing," he asked, but it was more of a statement than a question. She moved closer still. He rolled his eyes but inside he was nervous, curious. "I know this must be a turn-on for you."

She reached up and held his head in her hands. She felt his rough skin and pulled his face closer to hers. He noted that she smelled very good, like pears, but that was the last thing he thought, for then she kissed him. A million different emotions shot through his mind: confusion, lust, ecstasy, but he threw everything out as he rolled his eyes and thought, screw it. I _deserve_ this, I _want_ this, and darn it, I'm gonna take advantage of it. He closed his eyes and kissed her back; he had wanted this for so long.

She was still holding his face. His heart was beating, fast and erratic. Her left hand dropped and made its way down his side. When it stopped, he opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow. She was retrieving something from her lab coat pocket. Her broke the kiss, grabbed her wrist, and raised it so he could see what she was holding. It was a syringe. He had been had.

"A little whorish to kiss _and_ stab."

"You kissed back," she whispered.

_Empty-handed, _

_surrounded by a senseless scene_

_With nothing of significance_

'_Sides the shadow of a dream_

House entered the light box room, sighing. "Okay! Let's assume that I am dying. Which I specifically told you not to assume." He waved this away. "Can we at least assume that I am not dying tomorrow? Whereas this kid…" He laid Patrick's PET scan on the table. "PET revealed several more hotspots, but they're nonspecific."

"How can you focus on him?" Foreman asked, incredulous.

"It's the only way I can cope!" House said in a mockingly whiny and sad voice. "PET also showed a left brain that's working hard." He turned to leave.

"Harder than the right?" Foreman inquired.

"Wouldn't be worth mentioning otherwise." He turned to face his team again.

"Bleeding in the brain," Cameron concluded. "Blood would irritate the lining, might cause the seizures to get worse…"

"Yes, he needs an angiogram to look at the vasculature inside his brain," House commanded them.

Chase gestured to the MRIs and PETs of House's brain, which wasn't really House's brain. "We'll get right on it as soon as we're finished here."

House thought it was insane of them to get all worked up over his "brain cancer". They usually wouldn't give a crap. "Don't get up. I got it. You're busy. Continue." He snatched Patrick's PET scan and limped out of the room.

_You sound like an old joke,_

_You're worn out, a bit broke_

_And asking me time and time again_

_When the answer's still the same_

As he injected the dye into his patient, House looked at Patrick. "You know what my team is doing right now?"

"No," Patrick said, a little defiance in his tone.

"They're trying to figure out what's wrong with me."

"What's wrong with you?"

"Thanks for asking." He paused. "They found out that I'm dying."

"That's sad," his patient said simply.

"Everyone's dying." He moved the overhead lamp.

"That's sad," Patrick repeated.

"A meteor lands on my head tomorrow, it's all academic. I told them to leave me alone. But did they?" While he was saying this, he was scooting forward to look at the monitor showing Patrick's vasculature.

"Did they?" The boy looked genuinely interested.

"That one was rhetorical," House explained.

"Oh."

He sighed. "No they did not." Patrick stared at the ceiling and House stared at him. "Who the were you before you hit your head?" he wondered aloud.

" is a bad word," Patrick reprimanded his doctor meekly.

"So's , and . I could probably rattle off 50 much more complicated and disgusting ones, but then your dad would get pissed at me."

Patrick mouthed 'pissed at me'.

"You like your life?" House was genuinely interested as to his answer; he wanted to know what made people happy.

"What life?"

"Your life. Going on tour, playing the piano, scoring girls left and right."

Patrick wrinkled his nose in disgust. "I don't like girls," he informed House.

"Boys. Whatever gets you off."

"I like the piano." Patrick smiled. House was looking at the monitor. There was blood in Patrick's right brain.

_See the world_

_Find an old-fashioned girl,_

_And when all's been said and done_

_It's the things that are given, not won,_

_Are the things that you want_

House stormed into his office. "Okay. You guys have cleverly deduced that I have cancer. You have no right to know, you have no business knowing."

Foreman approached him. "We'd like to run some blood tests."

"As soon as you work up our patient, who is not me!" House exclaimed.

"We just want to make sure you weren't misdiagnosed," Cameron pleaded.

"I wasn't." _Because I wasn't diagnosed at all_. "Let's move on."

"We're just asking for a couple of vials." Chase walked around to face his boss.

"No!" House yelled, exasperated.

"Why not?" Cameron demanded.

"Okay. We're going to proceed as if I am perfectly healthy." _Because I am._

"How can we do that if we know you're not?" Chase begged.

"You don't _know_ anything!"

_You've got a chance to put things right,_

_So how's it going to be?_

"House. I'm _so_ sorry." Cuddy turned to face him.

"Forgot I was dying, huh?"

"I'm here if you need me."

_SCORE!_ "I need you." He moved closer to her, and she reached up to hug him. He could feel the sadness emanating out of her, and he felt so guilty. He wasn't sick. HE didn't have cancer. If there was any time to confess, it would be now. But…he just couldn't.

So he placed his hands on her butt.

_Lay down your arms now, _

_And put us beyond doubt,_

_So reach out, it's not too far away_

_Don't mess around now,_

_Don't delay_

The loud, irksome banging and Foreman yelling on his door woke House. He stumbled out of bed, limped down the hallway, and grabbed his cane from hanging from the doorframe. He opened the door.

"I've got a flight in three hours," he grumbled.

"You don't have cancer," Foreman said, beaming. Chase and Cameron were smiling too. "There was an abnormal presence of IgG and IgM, indicating—"

"I don't have neurosyphilis," House said tiredly. "My MRI showed nothing—"

Cameron interrupted. "It's a gumma in your brain, it's very rare not to be in the liver, and I'm _really_ glad we never slept together but—"

"We would have used a condom. And I don't have syphilis. MY VDRL was negative—"

Chase butted in. "We did a FTA antibody test. The VDRL was a false negative." They were all so happy; they just couldn't _wait_ for him to finish his sentences. "You're not going to die! All you need is IV antibiotics!"

It was ironic. He'd trained them too well, and now they had seen something even he couldn't have spotted.

"Did you send these results to Mass General?"

"Of course!" Chase said, glowing.

House was pissed. "You _idiots_." He turned away.

"We just told you you're not gonna die. You should be making out with Cameron!" Foreman called, to Chase's disapproval.

"You knew it wasn't cancer?" Cameron asked incredulously.

"I was sure it was cancer."

"Then, why aren't you celebrating?" Chase asked, amused.

"Because! It wasn't my file"!

Cameron's mouth dropped. "You _faked_ cancer?"

He looked at his feet sheepishly. "The real patient is in the Witherspoon Wing. Feel free to tell his wife that he's not gonna die, but he is cheating on her."

"Why would you want us to think that you—"

"_I didn't!_" House yelled. They just couldn't get it and he was tired of them. "I wanted the guys in Boston to think that I had cancer! I wanted the guys who were gonna implant a cool drug right into the pleasure center of my brain, to think that I had cancer!"

Cameron was always the one who understood House. "You faked cancer to get high?"

I could apologize, he thought. But…I don't care. "I'm going to bed," he said after a moment.

_See the world_

_Find an old-fashioned girl,_

_And when all's been said and done_

_It's the things that are given, not won,_

_Are the things that you want_

As House limped down the sidewalk, he thought. About Cameron, about Wilson, about Cuddy. He wondered if what he had done was wrong. But what did it matter? Why did he care?

Because he did care. No matter how many times he tried to convince his friends that he never cared, he himself wasn't persuaded.

As he passed a bar, he peered past the waiters and the patrons to see his team. They were eating together, and they looked… happy. He wanted that happiness. He wanted to feel what they were feeling. But—did he want to be happy with them?

Yes.


End file.
